# The Charity Commission wants to know what you think about online accounts

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2009/07/29/charity-commission-wants-know-what-you-think-about-online-accounts/
- Published: 2009-07-29T09:34:05+01:00
- Author: Finbar Cullen

Last week’s Third Sector magazine mentioned the relaunch of the online charity community
section of the website of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales(
ICAEW). Phew! Well, how could I resist?

 

www.ion.icaew.com/charity seems to be designed mainly for accountants, and the like,
but I couldn’t resist a rummage. In The Forum, I found an article “Charity Commission
seeks your help”. The Charity Commission is undertaking work to update its website,
aiming to improve the contents and the navigability of the site. To that end, it
is asking people to complete a short survey. The Charity Commission wants to know
what users think about Charity accounts – are they “complete, appropriate and useful”?

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While I think that the CC website is a marvellous resource, I would like Charity
accounts to always include a list of recipients of grants. I also think that the
Charity Commission should be careful to make sure that the accounts are not in fact
blank pages, and are for the correct charity.

 

When a trust gives a grant to an organisation where a trustee has an interest, that
is supposed to be declared in the accounts. I recently found a case where that appeared
not to have been declared. If this had been confirmed, I could have identified the
trustee from his corporate interests – handy for a researcher. The Charity Commission
employee didn’t appear to take my enquiry seriously, so I was unable to confirm 
the connection between the two organisations. Was the Charity in breach of Charity
Commission rules?

 

I also think that when you complete the feedback form on the Charity Commission 
website, it would be useful if their automated reply included your initial enquiry.
It would make it so much easier to keep tabs on their efficiency!

 

Janet Slade at the Charity Commission told me that they want to make the accountancy
pages more accessible to all, so the more replies they get from non accountants 
the more likely they are to be able to do this.

 

The survey needs to completed and returned by 21st September 2009. You can get a
copy of it from Ja*********@***********************ov.uk. You can download a copy
of the questionnaire below.

 

Meanwhile, I’ll take another rummage through the ICAEW website later on.

Finbar Cullen

Research**Plus**

 

| [Copy of CC questionnaire.xls](https://www.fundraising.co.uk/files/Copy of CC questionnaire.xls) | 22 KB |

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